That's just it. I think there is a reason to hurry, hurry, hurry, and if it ever became widespread knowledge it would go very badly for the Rats. The Reid/Chinese energy thing seems to be the most likely. If they want that land, they want it yesterday.
When in doubt, follow the money, and in Nevada, that's a straight shot to Reid's filthy pockets.
They can’t touch that land. Hello, what part of offsite mitigation do you not understand? Go look at a map. Nobody is building a solar energy plant between the two fingers of Lake Mead where all the water in the entire state of Nevada is when the entire rest of the state is bone dry useless desert.
It remains offsite mitigation whether there are cows on it or not. Clark County made that trade off back in 1998 when they bought out and retired the remaining grazing leases so they could continue develop other areas in the county (mostly at the edges of Las Vegas).
In some ways this is very like the original Sagebrush Rebellion of the 90’s. Clinton gets elected and the loony left goes bonkers with their Christmas wishlist of ways to stick it to the right. Bruce Babbit and Jim Baca start their machinations regarding stricter management of BLM lands (i.e. squeeze the ranchers off).
20 years later, same deal with loon left appointees under Obama, only there is a slight time delay due to the difficulty in getting confirmations through and the fact that Ocare sucked up so much of the available political capital.
The Biologically Diverse were suing or threatening to sue back then too.
What I see, is the same government incompetence and piss poor planning that always occurs when the desk jockeys think they have the upper hand.